The Divine Comedy, I. Inferno, Vol. I. Part 2: Commentary

By Dante and Charles S. Singleton

Charles S. Singleton's edition of the Divine Comedy, of which this is the first part, provides the English-speaking reader with everything he needs to read and understand Dante’s great masterpiece.

The Italian text here is in the edition of Giorgio Petrocchi, the leading Italian editor of Dante. Professor Singleton’s prose translation, facing the Italian in a line-for-line arrangement on each page, is smooth and literate. The companion volume, the Commentary, marshals every point of information the reader may require: vocabulary; grammar; identification of Dante’s characters; historical sources of some of the incidents and, where pertinent, excerpts from those sources in their original languages and in translation; profound clear analysis of the Divine Comedy’s basic allegory. There is a complete bibliography of every aspect of Dante studies.

This first part of the Divine Comedy which is illustrated with maps of Italy and the region Dante knew especially, diagrams of the circles of Hell, and plates showing some of the historic sites mentioned by Dante in his poem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9780691238296

Dante

Dante was born in Florence, Italy, in 1265. Heir of a poor but noble family, he was one of the seven elected officials in charge of the government of Florence. Civil war was common in Florence at the time and the issues were further complicated by the question of Papal influence. In 1300, Dante along with his fellow magistrates confirmed anti-papal measures. When in 1302, the French prince acting under orders from the Pope captured power in Florence, Dante was sentenced on charges of corruption and opposition to the Church and exiled from Florence on pain of execution by burning if he ever returned. He spent the rest of his life in exile, pining for his native city. He withdrew from active politics to a large extent and concentrated on his literary creations. We do not know exactly when Dante began work on The Divine Comedy. He had been moving about from court to court after his exile and 1n 1317 had settled at Ravenna, where he completed his great work. Extant correspondence shows that the first and second parts of The Divine Comedy, the "Inferno" and the "Purgatario" were generally known around 1319. The last part, the "Paradiso" was completed only in 1321. Dante died at Ravenna on 14 September 1321 and the last thirteen Cantos of the "Paradiso" were published posthumously.

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CANTO I

1. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita: In the fictional time of the journey (the year 1300, as will be disclosed later in the poem), Dante, who was born in 1265, is literally midway in the journey of his life—on good scriptural authority (Ps. 89[90]:10): Dies annorum nostrorum in ipsis septuaginta anni. (Seventy is the sum of our years.) The Biblical life span of seventy years had become a part of accepted medical and philosophical opinion; see B. Nardi (1930), pp. 123–53. See Conv. IV, xxiii, 9: Là dove sia lo punto sommo di questo arco [de la vita] . . . è forte da sapere; ma ne li più. io credo tra il trentesimo e quarantesimo anno, e io credo che ne li perfettamente naturati esso ne sia nel trentacinquesimo anno. (It is hard to say where the highest point of this arch [of life] is . . . but in the majority I take it to be somewhere between the thirtieth and the fortieth year. And I believe that in those of perfect nature it would be in the thirty-fifth year.) See also (this being the journey to Hell that it soon proves to be) Isa. 38:10: Ego dixi: In dimidio dierum meorum vadam ad portas inferi. (I said: In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell.)

The importance of nostra is not to be overlooked. This is our life’s journey, and we are necessarily involved in it. Thus, in its first adjective, the poem is open to the possibility of allegory.

2. mi ritrovai: The form with ri- (ritrovai instead of trovai) stresses inwardness, awareness (I came to myself). Here it registers the dawning of light in the conscience.

una selva oscura: See Aen. VI, 6–8:

. . . quaerit pars semina flammae abstrusa in venis silicis, pars densa ferarum tecta rapit silvas, inventaque flumina monstrat.

Some seek the seeds of flame hidden in veins of flint, some pillage the woods, the thick coverts of game, and point to new-found streams.

See also Aen. VI, 179, 185–88:

itur in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum;

.    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

atque haec ipse suo tristi cum corde volutat,

aspectans silvam immensam, et sic forte precatur:

"si nunc se nobis ille aureus arbore ramus

ostendat nemore in tanto! . . ."

They pass into the forest primeval, the deep lairs of beasts . . . . And alone [Aeneas] ponders with his own sad heart, gazing on the boundless forest, and, as it chanced, thus prays: O if now that golden bough would show itself to us on the tree in the deep wood!

See T. Silverstein (1932), pp. 81–82, for a discussion of Aen. VI, 179–89, and the following glosses on the passage by Bernard Sylvestris:

In silvam, in collectionem temporalium bonorum. Umbrosam [sic] et immensam, quia non est nisi umbra. Antiquam, ab inicio temporis natam. . . . Vocat enim philosophia luxuriosos sues, fraudulentos vulpes, garrulos canes, truculentos leones, iracundos apros, rapaces lupos, torpidos asinos. Hii omnes temporalia bona inhabitant.

In silvam (in the woods), in the totality of the things of this world. Umbrosam (shadowy) and immensam (immense), because the shadows are everywhere. Antiquam (ancient), born in the beginning of time. . . . Philosophy calls those who are immoderate, pigs; the fraudulent, foxes; the garrulous, dogs; the truculent, lions; the irascible, boars; the rapacious, wolves; the torpid, asses. All of them dwell amidst the things of this world.

In the Convivio (IV, xxiv, 12), Dante refers to la selva erronea di questa vita (the wandering wood of this life). See also Augustine, Conf. X, 35: tam immensa silva plena insidiarum et periculorum (so vast a wilderness, so full of snares and dangers).

On the darkness of the wood, Benvenuto comments: "Et dicit oscura propter ignorantiam et peccatum, quae obcaecant, et obscurant, et tenebras petunt, quia qui male agit, odit lucem. (And he says oscura [dark] because of ignorance and sin, which blind us and make things dark. Ignorance and sin seek darkness, for those who do evil hate light.")

3. la diritta via: See Prov. 2:13–14: qui relinquunt iter rectum, at ambulant per vias tenebrosas, qui laetantur cum malefecerint, et exsultant in rebus pessimis (who leave the straight paths to walk in ways of darkness, who delight in doing evil, rejoice in perversity), and Prov. 4:18–19: Iustorum autem semita quasi lux splendens procedit, et crescit usque ad perfectam diem. Via impiorum tenebrosa; nesciunt ubi corruant. (But the path of the just is like shining light, that grows in brilliance till perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness; they know not on what they stumble.) See also II Pet. 2:15: Derelinquentes rectam viam erraverunt. (They have forsaken the right way and have gone astray.)

5. esta = questa.

6. rinova = rinnova. la paura: Fear, which always besets the sinful life and enslaves the sinner (in theology, timor servilis), proves to be the main impediment at the start of the journey. See vss. 15, 19, 44, 53, and n. to vs. 53.

7. Tant’ è amara che poco è più morte: For the bitter wood and the comparison with death, see Eccles. 7:27[26]: amariorem morte (more bitter than death); Ecclus. 41:1: O mors, quam amara est memoria tua (O death! how bitter the thought of you); and Augustine, In Ioan. XVI, 6: Amara silva mundus hic fuit (A bitter wood was this world).

8. del ben ch’i’ vi trovai: This ben will be the wayfarer’s rescue by Virgil after the she-wolf thrusts him back into the dark wood.

11. pien di sonno: The sleep is the sinful life in its forgetfulness of the good. See Rom. 13:11–12: Et hoc scientes tempus, quia hora est iam nos de somno surgere . . . . Nox praecessit, dies autem appropinquavit. Abiiciamus ergo opera tenebrarum, et induamur arma lucis. (And this do, understanding the time, for it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep . . . . The night is far advanced; the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.)

12. la verace via: The diritta via of vs. 3, the way of virtue, of righteousness and justice. See Ps. 22[23]:3: Animam meam convertit. Deduxit me super semitas iustitiae. (He refreshes my soul. He guides me in right paths.)

13–18. Ma poi ch’i’ fui . . . per ogne calle: The wayfarer now again sees the true way, the way of virtue and righteousness, which leads up the hill before him and from which he had strayed. The hill is the mons Domini of the Scriptures (Ps. 23[24]:3): Quis ascendet in montem Domini? (Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord?) The poem gradually will disclose the full significance and true nature of this mountain, as well as the more exact meaning of the sun that now strikes the summit. The imagery and phraseology here remain essentially Biblical. See Pss. 14[15]:1–2; 120[121]:1; and especially Ps. 42[43]:3: Emitte lucem tuam et fidelitatem tuam: ipsae me ducant, adducant me in montem sanctum tuum et in tabernacula tua. (Send forth your light and your fidelity; they shall lead me on and bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling-place.)

The meaning of the sun here is suggested in Conv. III, xii, 6–7: Ora è da ragionare, per lo sole spirituale e intelligibile, che è Iddio. Nullo sensibile in tutto lo mondo è più degno di farsi essemplo di Dio che’l sole. (We are now to discourse of the spiritual sun, accessible to the intellect, that is God. No object of sense in all the universe is more worthy to be made the symbol of God than the sun.) Dante is using an ancient and well-established similitude. In the context of these verses, particularly vs. 18, the Sol iustitiae of the Scriptures is definitely a part of the intended meaning, and justice—or sin as injustice—is the keynote. See Mal. 4:2: Et orietur vobis timentibus nomen meum Sol iustitiae. (But unto you that fear my name the Sun of justice shall arise.)

17. pianeta: In the astronomy of Dante’s time, the sun was one of the planets that circle the earth. It is typically presented here, both as the real sun and as symbol (res et signum), in keeping with the other properties and features of this first scene.

18. ogne = ogni. On the basis of his MSS Petrocchi has generally preferred ogne as the form Dante probably used.

20. lago del cor: The lake of the heart was understood in Dante’s time to mean a concavity or ventricle in which the blood gathered. (For medieval ideas about the circulation of the blood, see G. Boffito, 1932.) Beyond its physiological meaning, however, this lake was identified as the location of fear in the human body. Commenting on this verse, Boccaccio observes that è quella parte ricettacolo di ogni nostra passione: e perciò dice che in quella gli era perseverata la passione della paura avuta. (That part is the reservoir of all our passions. Therefore, [Dante] says that the passion of fear he had felt perdured there.) The phrase appears elsewhere. See Dante, Rime dubbie III, vss. 7–9:

Ver è ch’ad ora ad ora indi discende

una saetta, che m’asciuga il lago

del cor pria che sia spenta.

True it is that now and again a fiery bolt thence descendem that dryeth up a lake from my heart ere it be quenched.

See also Vita nuova II, 4: In quello punto dico veracemente che lo spirito de la vita, lo quale dimora ne la secretissima camera de lo cuore, cominciò a tremare. (At that point I verily declare that the vital spirit which dwelleth in the most secret chamber of the heart began to tremble.)

22–27. E come . . . persona viva: The full import of this first simile of the poem cannot be appreciated until much later, when the whole figure of the Exodus is seen as the governing image, which on this scene requires the presence of water, the dangerous waters (i.e., something corresponding to a Red Sea wherein many perish, as the whole Egyptian army perished). Thus the pelago, here, later termed a fiumana (Inf. II, 108), corresponds even if its full meaning in this sense cannot be seen yet. Here it is a well-established symbol of the sinful life, harmonizing with the other features of a landscape that is essentially spiritual and moral. For the significance of Exodus as the master pattern of the poem’s prologue action, see C. S. Singleton (1965a).

26–27. lo passo . . . viva: The pelago is now named the pass that never left anyone alive, since, as an image of the sinful life, it can be said to sweep all sinners (i.e., all who remain in it) to their damnation and the second death (vs. 117) of Hell. See Prov. 12:28: In semita iustitiae vita, iter autem devium ducit ad mortem. (In the path of justice there is life, but the abominable way leads to death.)

28. èi = ebbi. il corpo lasso: The mind that was still fleeing but turned back to gaze (vss. 25–26) is no disembodied vision. The wayfarer is a living man. He moves here in the flesh, and his body is tired from its struggle to flee from the sinful life.

29. la piaggia diserta: Piaggia can mean slope or shore, or, as here, it may have both meanings at once (see A. Schiaffini, 1937a; M. Barbi, 1934b, pp. 200–201). The presence of water—if only in simile—makes possible the meaning of shore in this passage, as the poem viewed as a whole in retrospect easily confirms. Similarly, recognition of the Exodus pattern reveals the full significance of the adjective diserta.

30. sì che ’l piè fermo sempre era 7 più basso: This famously obscure verse is given its sufficient gloss by J. Freccero (1959). A long tradition applied the metaphor of feet to faculties of the soul. As this metaphor merged with Aristotle’s dictum that all motion originates from the right, it was said that the first step is taken by the right foot while the left remains stationary. The left foot was seen as the pes firmior, the firmer or less agile. Later, in a Christian tradition, there came about a more specific identification of the two feet of the soul. According to Bonaventura and others, the foot or power that moves first is the apprehensivus, or the intellect, and therefore is the right. The other or left foot is the affectus or appetitivus—i.e., the will. In Adam’s sin, wherein all men sinned, it was the intellect or right foot that suffered the wound of ignorance, while the left foot, the affectus or will—the pes firmior—suffered the wound of concupiscence. As a result, postlapsarian man is a limping creature (homo claudus). He limps especially in his left foot, because it is wounded by concupiscence, the chief vulneratio of original sin.

In this opening scene of the poem, the wayfarer, as he strives to climb toward the light at the summit, has to discover that he bears within him the weaknesses of homo claudus. He can see the light at the summit (seeing, in this case, is a function of the intellect or right foot). At best, however, he can only limp toward the light he sees because in his other power, his will—the left foot or pes firmior—he bears the wound of concupiscence. Thus, the piè fermo is the pes infirmior, as Freccero (1959) fully documents.

In this whole figure of conversion, or turning toward the light, as it is staged here in Canto I, the wayfarer learns that he is wounded in the power of his will and cannot advance effectively toward the apprehended goal. In fact, the sinful dispositions he thought he had left behind him in the darkness now appear before him in the form of the three beasts blocking his way.

Several features of the scene later find their further elucidation and confirmation in connection with Purg. I.

31–60. Ed ecco . . . tace: In the moral allegory, the three beasts that now appear before the wayfarer and impede his ascent are best understood as sinful dispositions. As the poem unfolds, it reveals the true names and natures of the beasts. Of the three, the she-wolf proves to be the most troublesome; this fact in itself suggests rather clearly, even without ulterior confirmations, that the beasťs name in allegory is cupiditas, the root of all evils (see n. to vss. 94–101). Concupiscentia ("the chief vulneratio of original sin) would serve equally well as the wolf’s allegorical name.’ The three beasts, as such, are plainly reminiscent of Ier. 5:6: Idcirco percussit eos leo de silva, lupus ad vesperam vastavit eos, pardus vigilans super civitates eorum: omnis qui egressus fuerit ex eis capietur, quia multiplicatae sunt praevaricationes eorum, confortatae sunt aversiones eorum. (Wherefore a lion out of the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening hath spoiled them, a leopard watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their rebellions are strengthened.")

31. quasi al cominciar de l’erta: The wayfarer has already begun to climb the slope. The meaning is soon after the beginning of the climb.

32. una lonza: OFr lonce. This animal is mentioned in the medieval bestiaries. The description in the Bestiario toscano (M. S. Garver and K. McKenzie, 1912, p. 86) indicates a rather special animal: "Loncia (var. lonza) è animale crudele e fiera, e nasce de coniungimento carnale de leone con lonça o vero de leopardo con leonissa. (The loncia or lonza is a vicious, ferocious animal, born of the carnal union of a lion with a leopardess or of a leopard with a lioness.") Some insist that the lonza is the female of the pardus, an identification that fits the requirements of Ier. 5:6. Benvenuto says: "Istud vocabulum florentinum lonza videtur magis importare pardum, quam aliam feram. (This Florentine word lonza seems to signify the leopardess, rather than any other wild beast.) And Buti mentions la lonza, che è la femina di quello animale che si chiama pardo (the lonza, which is the female of that animal called the leopard"). On the whole question of the identification of this beast, see P. Chistoni (1903); E. Proto (1907); T. Casini (1895).

33. pel macolato: See maculosae tegmine lyncis (a dappled lynx’s hide) in Aen. I, 323.

35. anzi ’mpediva = anzi impediva. On elisions of this kind, see n. to vs. 96.

37–43. Temp’ era . . . la dolce stagione: No more precise time than this is given here for the beginning of the journey. It was believed that at the moment of creation, when God first set the heavenly bodies (quelle cose belle, vs. 40) in motion, the sun was in the sign of Aries (which it enters at the vernal equinox, about March 21). It is spring, therefore, traditionally a season of good hope—the more so in that it is also the time of the Incarnation (March 25). See Macrobius, Comm. in somn. Scip. I, xxi, 23: Aiunt enim incipiente die illo qui primus omnium luxit . . . qui ideo mundi natalis iure vocitatur, Arietem in medio caelo fuisse. (According to them, at the beginning of that day which was the first of all days . . . the day which is rightly called the birthday of the universe, Aries was in the middle of the sky.) Benvenuto comments: Dicunt enim astrologi et theologi quod Deus ab initio saeculi posuit solem in ariete, in quo signo facit nobis ver. (Indeed, the astrologers and theologians say that at the beginning of the world, God placed the sun in Aries, in which sign He gives us spring.)

37. dal principio = al principio.

44–48. ma non sì che paura . . . tremesse: In its furious advance the lion manifests the violence that it later proves to represent in the allegory. In its hunger it would devour the wayfarer. Fear again is stressed as the prevailing emotion.

45. la vista che m’apparve: The visionary quality of this first scene and, accordingly, its primary significance in the moral allegory are emphasized by such recurring words as vista and parere (here, apparere). For vista in the sense of image or figure, see M. Barbi (1934b), pp. 268–69.

46. Questi: Masculine singular demonstrative pronoun, corresponding to quei (vs. 22). venisse: Petrocchi chooses, in this case as in others, to leave what is derived from the so-called Sicilian rhyme, i.e., -isse in rhyme with -esse, since he is persuaded, on the basis of his MSS, that such was still Dante’s usage. For a discussion of this, see his vol. I, Introduzione, p. 470, where he also refers to an example of this rhyme in Boccaccio’s Teseida (IX, 30).

47. rabbiosa fame: See Aen. VI, 421, where Cerberus opens his triple throat fame rabida (in ravenous hunger).

48. parea che l’aere ne tremesse: See Ovid, Metam. XIII, 406: externasque novo latratu terruit auras (and with strange barking affrighted the alien air). tremesse: Vandelli and Casella both have temesse. For Petrocchi’s justification of tremesse, see his n. to this verse and his discussion of the point in his vol. I, Introduzione, pp. 165–66. Either reading makes sense, but tremesse seems finally the better.

50. sembiava = sembrava. carca = carica.

51. fé = fece.

53. la paura ch’uscia di sua vista: Again, fear is the subjective impediment of the ascent up the mountain, a fear that finally causes despair. See Sapien. 11:20: Sed et aspectus per timorem occidere [poterat]. (But also the very sight might kill them through fear.) It is to be noted, however, that uscia di sua vista says that fear came from sight of her. The construction is common in Dante; see Purg. I, 28: Com’ io da loro sguardo fui partito. See also Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I, sc. 1, 11. 176–77: Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, / should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

53. uscia (pronounced uscìa) = usciva.

55–60. E qual . . . tace: This figure amounts to a pseudo-simile, common enough in the poem: the one of the first term of the comparison actually is not distinguishable from the other of the second term, except that the former is given as the generic instance and the latter as the particular. The wayfarer here is precisely such a one, in that he eagerly advances up the slope until he encounters the beast.

56. face = fa.

58. sanza = senza.

60. là dove ’l sol tace: The darkness. The wayfarer is thrust back toward the dark wood, but not into it, since when help comes he is still on the piaggia diserta (vs. 29). In fact, in the next canto he will be seen as one struggling over the fiumana or flood (Inf. II, 108) to which the wolf had driven him (and again the presence of water will make the piaggia—Inf. II, 62—a shore as well as a slope).

The figurative merging here of the visual (the sun) and the auditory (is silent) anticipates a similar device in vs. 63.

61. rovinava: Some MSS read ruvinava. Vandelli had adopted rovinava, whereas Casella had preferred ruinava. In any case the noun rovina or ruina should not be lost sight of. The meaning is falling back and down, with the moral connotation of ruin. in basso loco: Back toward the valley and the dark wood. loco = luogo. See n. to vs. 66 on omo.

63. chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco: The verse seems deliberately ambiguous, since fioco can mean faint either to the eye or to the ear, and silenzio can have meaning with respect both to space and to time. If the one who comes is faint to the eye, then he appears dim because he is seen through long silence, i.e., nel gran diserto of the following verse; if faint to the ear, then it is because Virgil’s voice, as the voice of reason, had not reached the wayfarer for a long time—for as long, in fact, as he had wandered from the path of virtue. The voice of reason contributes to the temporal meaning of the long silence, and the gran diserto to its spatial meaning.

64. gran diserto: A reason that the desert slope-shore (piaggia diserta, vs. 29) is also termed a gran diserto will become clear many cantos later in the poem. See C. S. Singleton (1965a), pp. 104–9.

66. sii = sia. omo = uomo. Characteristically in Tuscan usage, the single o displaces the diphthong uo when it bears the tonic stress (as also in loco, foco).

68. li = i.

69. mantoani = mantovani. Mantua, near which Virgil was born, was considered to be a city of Lombardy in Dante’s day.

70. sub Iulio, ancor che fosse tardi: Under Julius, i.e., in the time of Julius Caesar, though late, since Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C., when Virgil was only twenty-five years old and had not begun to write the works that were to bring him fame sub Augusto.

72. li dèi falsi e bugiardi: For Augustine (see De civ. Dei II, 2; II, 10; II, xxix, 1–2, et passim), as for the Middle Ages, the pagan gods were actually demons intent on deceiving and ensnaring mankind; hence they were said to be not only false but lying gods, and an enlightened Virgil can now so see them.

73–74. quel giusto figliuol d’Anchise: Aeneas, the just king. See Aen. I, 544–45: Rex erat Aeneas nobis, quo iustior alter / nec pietate fuit, nec bello maior et armis. (Our king was Aeneas: none more righteous than he in goodness, or greater in war and deeds of arms.)

74. di: Both Vandelli and Casella have da. See Petrocchi’s justification of di in his n. to this vs. and his reference to further instances in Inf. V, 85; VIII, 54; XIII, 11, 43; XV, 43, 62; and passim.

75. superbo Ilión: See Aen. III, 2–3: ceciditque superbum / Ilium et omnis humo fumat Neptunia Troia (after proud Ilium fell, and all Neptune’s Troy smokes from the ground). In Purg. XII, 61–63, the fall of Troy will be seen as the prime example of pride laid low. / For the accent on the last syllable of Ilión, see n. to Inf. V, 4.

combusto: Past participle of comburere, to burn. See Ovid, Metam. XIII, 408: Ilion ardebat. (Ilium was in flames.)

77–78. il dilettoso monte . . . tutta gioia: Virgil’s words refer to the summit of the mountain, of course, and what awaits the wayfarer there if he should reach it. This is a mountain to be climbed and the goal lies at its summit, now illuminated by the sun. Thus, the summit, the goal, is the final cause of the action that leads to it. See De mon. I, ii, 7: Rursus, cum in operabilibus principium et causa omnium sit ultimus finis. (Again, in the case of anything that is done it is the ultimate end which constitutes the first principle and cause of the whole thing.) And at the summit of the mountain, as will be seen, it is true happiness that awaits the wayfarer.

79. Or se’ tu quel Virgilio: The poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) was born in 70 B.C. near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. His ten pastoral poems, the Eclogues (Bucolica), on which Dante closely modeled his Eclogae, were published ca. 37 B.C.; and his four books on agriculture, the Georgics, were published seven years later. The last eleven years of his life were spent in the composition of the Aeneid. He died in 19 B.C. in Brundisium.

83. vagliami = mi vaglia. Dante frequently uses a singular verb with a plural subject.

84. cercar: To pore over. lo tuo volume: The Aeneid.

85. autore: In Conv. IV, vi, 5, Dante notes that the word author si prende per ogni persona degna d’essere creduta e obedita (is understood of every person worthy of being believed and obeyed); hence, an auctor is an authority.

87. stilo = stile. This seems to mean the illustrious or tragic style that Dante distinguishes from two other styles, the comic and the elegiac (see De vulg. eloqu. II, iv, 5–8). Before 1300, the fictional date of his journey to the otherworld, Dante already had composed a number of canzoni in the style referred to as bello, which he claims here to have learned from Virgil. Dante proposed to give and expound allegorically a number of these canzoni in the Convivio. These are the poems and this is the style, then, that have done him honor.

88. la bestia: The she-wolf (see vs. 58).

89. saggio = savio. For Dante, as for his time, the ancient poets are savi, men of wisdom and learning, poetry itself being a form of wisdom. Thus, Dante designates as sages Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan (Inf. IV, 110), Statius (Purg. XXIII, 8), and his own contemporary Guido Guinizelli (Vita nuova XX, 3).

90. e i polsi: A standing phrase (see Inf. XIII, 63).

94–101. questa bestia . . . e più saranno ancora: The she-wolf is seen here as cupiditas or concupiscentia, one of the three major categories of sins, as we are to learn later in the poem. There is good reason for the she-wolf’s being, of the three beasts, the most troublesome and for her mating with many creatures and causing many to live in sorrow: Radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas; quam quidam appetentes erraverunt a fide, et inseruerunt se doloribus multis—"For covetousness is the root of all evils, and some in their eagerness to get rich have strayed from the faith

and have involved themselves in many troubles" (I Tim. 6:10).

94. gride = gridi.

96. lo ’mpedisce = lo impedisce. In the older usage, as witnessed by the MSS, it was customary to elide the initial vowel of the word following a definite article or other preceding word ending in a vowel, rather than to elide the vowel of the article or other preceding word itself as in l’impedisce.

100. Molti son li animali a cui s’ammoglia: See Apoc. 18:3: De vino irae fornicationis eius biberunt omnes gentes, et reges terrae cum illa fornicati sunt. (All the nations have drunk of the wrath of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her.)

101–2. infin che ’l veltro verrà: Dante never lost hope in the advent of a temporal monarch as is so obscurely predicted here by Virgil. Dante earlier had written of such a monarch in similar terms and specifically with regard to cupidity (De mon. I, xiii, 7):

Cum ergo Monarcha nullam cupiditatis occasionem habere possit vel saltem minimam inter mortales . . . quod ceteris principibus non contingit, et cupiditas ipsa sola sit corruptiva iudicii et iustitie prepeditiva, consequens est quod ipse vel omnino vel maxime bene dispositus ad regendum esse potest, quia inter ceteros iudicium et iustitiam potissime habere potest.

Since, then, the monarch cannot have any occasion for greed, or at any rate can of all men have least occasion thereto . . . which is not the case with the other princes, and since greed, in its turn, is the sole corrupter of judgment and impeder of justice, it follows that the monarch is capable either of the absolutely good disposition for governing, or at least of a higher degree thereof than others; because he amongst all others is capable of the highest degree of judgment and justice.

For the long and continuing debate over the identity of the veltro, see M. Barbi (1938), pp. 29–39; V. Cian (1945); R. E. Kaske (1961); E. Moore (1903), pp. 253–83; E. G. Parodi (1920), pp. 367–532; A. Vallone (1955; 1961, pp. 85–87).

103. non ciberà terra né peltro: The Hound will seek neither land nor money. The eating of earth as a sign of greed is enacted later when ravenous Cerberus is quieted by Virgil’s tossing earth into his three greedy throats (Inf. VI, 25–27). peltro: Literally, pewter.

105. sua nazion sarà tra feltro e feltro: The prophecy is deliberately obscure. If nazion means birth, which seems probable, the phrase tra feltro e feltro could well indicate that the time of the expected advent will be under the constellation of Gemini—i.e., the twins Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri, who were commonly represented as wearing felt caps and were, accordingly, known as the pilleati fratres. To be sure, such an indication does not actually make the oracular pronouncement much clearer in its meaning. Dante thought Gemini one of the best constellations to be born under, however—it was his own. For this theory of the meaning of tra feltro e feltro, see L. Olschki (1949). For the many other interpretations advanced over the centuries, see the references cited in n. to vss. 101–2.

106. Di quella umile Italia fia salute: The adjective umile (pronounced umìle) intentionally echoes Virgil’s use of humilem in Aen. III, 522–23, cum procul obscuros collis humilemque videmus / Italiam, which R. M. Haywood (1959), in a new interpretation, translates as when from afar we saw the dim hills of Italy lying low on the horizon. Since here in Dante’s poem it is Virgil who utters this prophecy, the echo from the Aeneid is rich in suggestion: an Italy glimpsed now in the distance of time, rather than of space, as a kind of promised land to be restored to peace by the veltro.

107–8. morì . . . di ferute: Of the four slain warriors named by Dante here, two fought on the side of the Trojan Aeneas and two fought against him.

107. Cammilla: Camilla, daughter of King Metabus of the Volscian town of Privernum, assisted Turnus in his war against Aeneas. She was ambushed and killed by Arruns. See Aen. XI, 759–831.

108. Eurialo e . . . Niso: Euryalus and Nisus, Trojan youths famous for their close friendship, accompanied Aeneas to Italy and died together after a night attack on the Rutulian camp. See Aen. IX, 176–449. Eurialo: Pronounced Eurìalo. Turno: Turnus was king of the Rutulians at the time of Aeneas’ arrival in Italy. In the war that ensued, Turnus was killed by Aeneas in single combat. See Aen. XII, 887–952. ferute = ferite.

111. là onde ’nvidia prima dipartilla: See Sapien. 2:24: Invidia autem diaboli mors introivit in orbem terrarum. (But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world.)

onde ’nvidia = onde invidia. On elisions of this kind, see n. to vs. 96. dipartilla = la dipartì.

112. me’ = meglio.

113. segui = segua.

114. trarrotti = ti trarrò (future of trarre). Note that in older usage, conjunctive pronouns may be appended to certain finite forms of the verb, as in dipartilla (past absolute), in vs. 111. In such cases, the initial consonant of the pronoun is doubled if the verb form itself bears the tonic stress on its final syllable or if it is monosyllabic. That is, the doubling of the pronoun’s initial consonant simply means that the verb keeps its usual tonic stress. per loco etterno: Hell—as distinguished from Purgatory (vss. 118–20), which will not exist eternally.

117. ch’a la: Both Vandelli and Casella prefer che la, but Petrocchi has felt justified on the basis of his MSS to adopt the preposition. See his note to this vs. la seconda morte: See Apoc. 20:14: Et infernus et mors missi sunt in stagnum ignis: haec est mors secunda. (And hell and death were cast into the pool of fire. This is the second death.) See also Apoc. 21:8: Pars illorum erit in stagno ardenti igne et sulphure: quod est mors secunda. (Their portion shall be in the pool that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.)

119. nel foco: The purifying fire of Purgatory. Later, the whole purgative process of the second realm will be referred to as il temporal foco (Purg. XXVII, 127), distinguished from l’etterno foco of Hell, even though fire proves to be but one of several forms of cleansing punishment in that temporal abode. foco = fuoco; see n. on omo, vs. 66.

122. fia = sarà.

124. quello imperador che là sù regna: It seems most fitting that Virgil, poet of empire, should speak thus of God, whose empire is everywhere and whose kingdom is the tenth heaven, the Empyrean, where He dwells.

125–26. perch’ i’ ju’ ribellante . . . si vegna: As the poem is to make abundantly clear, Virgil died a pagan, with no burden of actual or personal sin, but only with that of original sin. This is true also of the other virtuous pagans of antiquity soon to be met in Limbo: They did not sin . . . and if they were before Christianity, they did not worship God aright (Inf. IV, 34, 37–38). Only in this sense can Virgil mean that he rebelled against God’s law. It was not given to such pagans as Virgil to believe in the Christ who was to come; hence, they are forever denied the blessedness of Heaven. See vs. 131, where Virgil is said not to have known the Christian God.

126. non vuol che ’n sua città per me si vegna: Literally, does not will that there be any coming into His city by me. This impersonal construction occurs frequently in the poem.

città: See Apoc. 22:14: Beati qui lavant stolas suas in sanguine Agni, ut sit potestas eorum in ligno vitae, et per portas intrent in civitatem. (Blessed are they who wash their robes [in the blood of the Lamb,] that they may have the right to the tree of life, and that by the gates they may enter into the city.) See also Heb. 11:10: Expectabat enim fundamenta habentem civitatem, cuius artifex et conditor Deus. (For he was looking for the city with fixed foundations, of which city the architect and the builder is God.)

Dante’s image of the city here suggests specifically a heavenly Rome. See Purg. XXXII, 102—and, of course, Augustine’s De civitate Dei.

130. richeggio = richiedo.

132. questo male e peggio: The evil of being in the dark wood of sin, which is so bitter, and eternal damnation, which is worse.

134. veggia = veda. la porta di san Pietro: In Purgatory, as will be seen.

135. color cui tu fai cotanto mesti: The damned of Hell. fai: Make, in the sense of designate or term.

136. li = gli.

CANTO II

1. Lo giorno se n’andava: See Aen. III, 147: Nox erat et terris animalia somnus habebat. (It was night and on earth sleep held the living world.) See also Aen. VIII, 26–27; IX, 224–25. The dark air of evening is now here; the wayfarer has spent the whole day, from sunrise to sunset, in his attempt to climb the mountain.

2. animai = animali, i.e., all animate creatures, including man—a common use of the term both in Latin and in Dante. See Virgil’s use of animalia (n. to vs. 1, above). See also Inf. V, 88, where Dante is addressed as animal grazioso e benigno.

3. io sol uno: Dante can be said to be alone, since Virgil is a shade. See Inf. I, 67: Non omo, omo già fui.

4. guerra: The battle or ordeal.

5. la pietate: The pity that the living man knows he will feel for the tormented souls of the damned.

6. ritrarrà la mente che non erra: Mente is used here in the sense of memoria, a frequent meaning of mente in Dante (and of mens in Latin). See Rime L, 1; LXVII, 59.

Memory will now faithfully retrace the real event of the journey, exactly as it took place. This most extraordinary journey through the three realms of the afterlife is represented, never as dreamed or experienced in vision, but as a real happening, involving—as is made evident in Canto I—a living man who goes in the body and who moves always through real space. It is now the poet’s arduous task to go back over the entire course of the event as it actually occurred and to give, in verse, a true report. Here, then, and in the following invocation, the poet’s voice is heard for the first time as it speaks of his task as poet.

7–9. O muse . . . la tua nobilitate: The invocation is in the epic style (see, for example, Aen. VI, 264–67). Similar invocations are made at the beginning of the other two cantiche. For that of the Paradiso see Dante’s own remarks in his Letter to Can Grande (Epist. XIII, 46–48). That the invocation of the Inferno is made here in Canto II declares that this second canto is actually the first of the Inferno proper (which then, like the other two cantiche, consists of thirty-three cantos). Inferno I thus figures as an introductory canto or prologue to the whole poem and brings the total number of cantos to the perfect number of one hundred.

7. alto ingegno: The poet’s own genius, his virtù as poet, whereas the Muses are invoked to give inspiration. Such a distinction is traditional. See De vulg. eloqu. II, iv, 9–10, where, after discussing the selection of the poet’s materia and the choice of style, Dante writes:

Caveat ergo quilibet et discernat ea que dicimus; et quando tria hec pure cantare intendit, vel que ad ea directe ac pure secuntur, prius Elicone potatus, tensis fidibus, adsumptum secure plectrum tum movere incipiat. Sed cautionem atque discretionem habere sicut decet, hoc opus et labor est, quoniam nunquam sine strenuitate ingenii et artis assiduitate scientiarumque habitu fieri potest. Et hii sunt quos Poeta, Eneidorum sexto, dilectos Dei et ab ardente virtute sublimatos ad ethera Deorumque filios vocat, quanquam figurate loquatur. Et ideo confutetur eorum stultitia, qui, arte scientiaque immunes, de solo ingenio confidentes, ad summa summe canenda prorumpunt; et a tanta pre-sumptuositate desistant; et si anseres natura vel desidia sunt, nolint astripetam aquilam imitari.

Let every one therefore beware and discern what we say; and when he purposes to sing of these three subjects simply [the three matters for poetry in the tragic style], or of those things which directly and simply follow after them, let him first drink of Helicon, and then, after adjusting the strings, boldly take up his plectrum and begin to ply it. But it is in the exercise of the needful caution and discernment that the real difficulty lies; for this can never be attained to without strenuous efforts of genius, constant practice in the art, and the habit of the sciences. And it is those (so equipped) whom the poet in the sixth book of the Aeneid describes as beloved of God, raised by glowing virtue to the sky, and sons of the Gods, though he is speaking figuratively. And therefore let those who, innocent of art and science, and trusting to genius alone, rush forward to sing of the highest subjects in the highest style, confess their folly and cease from such presumption; and if in their natural sluggishness they are but geese, let them abstain from imitating the eagle soaring to the stars.

8. mente che scrivesti: Latent is the metaphor of a Book of Memory, a figure that controls the whole form of the Vita nuova after it is presented there in the opening words (see C. S. Singleton, 1949, pp. 25–54). This metaphor will be used more than once in the Commedia. See Par. XXIII, 54, where memory is called the libro che ’l preterito rassegna. By virtue of this same figure the poet also speaks of himself as scriba (Par. X, 27). Here in the Inferno, however, it is memory itself that wrote down what the poet saw.

9. la tua nobilitate: See Conv. IV, xvi, 4: Per questo vocabulo ’nobilitade’ s’intende perfezione di propria natura in ciascuna cosa. (This word ’nobleness’ means the perfection in each thing of its proper nature.)

10. Io cominciai . . . : The prologue and invocation completed, the canto’s pars executiva—as Dante terms it in his Letter to Can Grande (Epist. XIII, 43)—begins with this verse.

12. l’alto passo: The deep way that lies ahead, the guerra del cammino of vss. 4–5. Note in passo the suggestion of a passing or crossing over (into the world of the dead), and a certain figurative correspondence with lo passo che non lasciò già mai persona viva (Inf. I, 26–27).

13. Tu dici che di Silvio il parente: The passing touch of Tu dici che recognizes that Aeneas’ journey to the world of the dead as related in the Aeneid was poetic fiction. (For a similar touch, see Par. XV, 26: se fede merta nostra maggior musa, referring, of course, to Virgil’s Aeneid. Also see Inf. XIII, 46–48.) In contrast, no such reservation is made when Paul’s journey is mentioned (Inf. II, 28: Andovvi). Silvio: Dante follows Virgil in making Silvius not the son of Ascanius (Livy, I, iii, 6–7), but the late-born son of Aeneas and Lavinia (Aen. VI, 763–66):

Silvius, Albanum nomen, tua postuma proles,

quem tibi longaevo serum Lavinia coniunx

educet silvis regem regumque parentem,

unde genus Longa nostrum dominabitur Alba.

Silvius of Alban name, thy last-born child, whom late in thy old age thy wife Lavinia shall bring up in the woodland, a king and father of kings; from him shall our race have sway in Long Alba.

According to Servius (on Aen. VI, 760), at the death of Aeneas, Lavinia took refuge in the woods for fear of Ascanius (Aeneas’ son by Creusa) and there gave birth to Silvius. Ascanius, the founder of Alba Longa, eventually was succeeded by Silvius.

14. corruttibile ancora: Still mortal.

14–15. ad immortale secolo: Cf. the Latin saeculum in this sense. Mortale secolo means this world, of course. Immortale secolo refers to the otherworld, and is general enough to include both Hades and Paradise. It is possible that Dante knew the Visio Sancti Pauli, a very old and widely known account of Heaven and Hell in which Paul is represented as going to Hell. Nevertheless, immortal world here in Canto II clearly suggests Heaven as well as Hell: Paul went to the former, Aeneas to the latter. Dante would have expected his readers to remember that Paul had been caught up into paradise (see n. to vs. 29); moreover, the vi in Andovvi (vs. 28) indicates Paradise, included in the immortale secolo. Paul’s rapture will be recalled again when Dante’s own ascent to the heavenly Paradise begins, and it is touched on in Dante’s Letter to Can Grande (Epist. XIII, 79)./ On the Visio Sancti Pauli and other popular accounts of the otherworld known in the Middle Ages, see T. Silverstein (1937).

15. sensibilmente: In his bodily senses.

17. i = gli. pensando: The subject understood may be either God or one in a kind of ablative absolute. If one considers the high effect . . . seems the more probable interpretation. l’alto effetto: As stated in vss. 20–24.

18. e ’l chi e ’l quale: Cf. the scholastic phrase quis et qualis. / Aeneas was noble by birth, by character, and by marriage. See De mon. II, iii, 6: Nam divinus poeta noster Virgilius per totam Eneidem gloriosissimum regem Eneam patrem Romani populi fuisse testatur in memoriam sempiternam. ("For our divine poet Virgil, throughout the Aeneid testifies, for an everlasting memorial, that the glorious king Aeneas was the father of the Roman people.") And Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, was descended from Aeneas (Aen. VI, 777–79). Some interpreters would refer the phrase to the alto effetto (vs. 17) rather than to Aeneas, but this seems less satisfactory; the focus here appears to be on Aeneas himself, as it continues to be in vss. 20–21. For yet another interpretation, see A. Pagliaro (1961), pp. 190, 231–36, and Petrocchi’s note.

Petrocchi has followed Pagliaro in having no comma after quale; however, many other editors have a comma there, and this seems more in accord with the meaning that the translation has rendered.

20. e’ = ei (egli).

21. l’empireo ciel: The Empyrean heaven, the tenth and outermost sphere, God’s abode and kingdom, as it is called in Inf. I, 127. See Conv. II, iii, 8, 10:

Veramente, fuori di tutti questi [cieli], li cattolici pongono lo cielo Empireo, che è a dire cielo di fiamma o vero luminoso. . . . E quieto e pacifico è lo luogo di quella somma Deitade che sola [sè] compiutamente vede. Questo loco è di spiriti beati, secondo che la Santa Chiesa vuole, che non può dire menzogna.

But beyond all these [heavens] the Catholics assert the empyrean heaven, which is as much as to say the heaven of flame, or the luminous heaven. . . . But still and tranquil is the place of that supreme deity, which alone completely perceiveth itself. This is the place of the blessed spirits, according as holy Church, which may not lie, will have it.

21. eletto: For Dante, the Roman Empire is directly ordained by God as part of His providential plan for man’s redemption and was established in order to prepare the way for the Advent of the Saviour and the foundation of His Church on earth—a conception that emerges time and again in the course of the poem. See C. S. Singleton (1958), pp. 86–100. Also see F. Torraca (1925), who quotes several documents of Henry VII in support of this idea, and N. Zingarelli (1927), pp. 91–94.

22–23. la quale e ’l quale . . . fu stabilita: Roma e suo impero (vs. 20) are the antecedents. A compound subject governing a singular verb is common in Dante. / The reading stabilita instead of stabilito seems preferable since it singles out the first subject (Rome) as the holy place. Thomas Aquinas (De reg. prin. I, 14) refers to Rome as the city quam Deus praeviderat christiani populi principalem sedem futuram (which God had foreseen as the chief abode of the Christians). Also see Conv. IV, iv, 13: E che ciò sia, per due apertissime ragioni vedere si può, le quali mostrano quella civitade imperatrice, e da Dio avere spezial nascimento, e da Dio avere spezial processo. (And that this is so may be seen by two most manifest reasons, which show that this city [of Rome] was imperial, and had special birth and special progress from God.)

24. u’ = ubi (ove). maggior Piero: Probably no comparison is intended here; the adjective may simply mean great (see M. Barbi, 1934b, p. 237). Possibly, however, some comparison might be implied in the sense that Peter is thus singled out as the first and greatest of the popes. See Par. XXXII, 136, where Adam is styled the maggior padre di famiglia.

25. onde li dai tu vanto: Again, the particular turn of phrase implies that Aeneas’ journey was poetic fiction. See n. to vs. 13. li = gli.

27. di sua vittoria e del papale ammanto: Aeneas’ victory led to the establishment of the Roman Empire, which was, in turn, a preparation for the establishment of the Church— the alto effetto (vs. 17) that was to come of Aeneas’ journey. See n. to vs. 21.

28. Andovvi = vi andò, i.e., ad immortale secolo, which is Heaven in this case (see n. to vss. 14–15). lo Vas d’elezione: Paul. See Actus 9:15: Dixit autem ad eum Dominus: Vade, quoniam vas electionis est mihi iste, ut portet nomen meum coram Gentibus et regibus et filiis Israel. (But the Lord said to him, ’Go, for this man is a chosen vessel to me, to carry my name among nations and kings and the children of Israel.’ )

29. per recarne conforto a quella fede: Paul, caught up into paradise, saw by direct vision (II Cor. 12:2–4), not per speculum, as faith must see in this life. His was a seeing that transcended faith, and the report of it is a conforto to faith.

30. principio a la via di salvazione. See Heb. 11:6: Sine fide autem impossibile est piacere Deo. (Without faith it is impossible to please God.) See also Thomas Aquinas, Summa theol. II-II, q. 2, a. 3, resp.: Ad hoc quod homo perveniat ad perfectam visionem beatitudinis, praeexigitur quod credat Deo, tamquam discipulus magistro docenti. (In order that a man arrive at the perfect vision of heavenly happiness, he must first of all believe God, as a disciple believes the master who is teaching him.)

31–33. io . . . io . . . io . . . : In Italian, the subject pronoun is always emphatic, and it becomes the more so here by its repetition.

31. venirvi: The vi continues to refer to the immortale secolo (vss. 14–15), including both Heaven and Hell, but the shift from the going of Aeneas and Paul (andata, vs. 25) to the coming of Dante (venuta, vs. 35) brings in Virgil and his point of view. This shift is sustained throughout the rest of the canto.

32. Enea . . . Paulo: Aeneas at the start of his journey to Hades also names two who had been there (Aen. VI, 122–23): Quid Thesea magnum, / quid memorem Alciden? (Why speak of great Theseus, why of Alcides?)

33. né altri ’l crede: Neither Vandelli nor Casella has the pleonastic pronoun ‘l (=il). Petrocchi argues convincingly for its inclusion in the verse; see his note.

34. se del venire io m’abbandono: If I allow myself to come.

35. folle: Folly—with the touch of a suggestion that for him to undertake such a journey would be an act of hubris.

36. me’ = meglio.

37–40. E qual . . . tal mi fec’ io: Again, a pseudo-simile (see n. to Inf. I, 55–60).

38. cangia = cambia. proposta = proposito (cf. proposto, vs. 138).

39. tolle = toglie (from Latin tollere). The meaning here is si distoglie.

40. oscura costa: Like piaggia (see n. to Inf. I, vs. 29), costa can mean either shore or slope, or, as here, it may have both meanings. It is dark because night has fallen, but it is dark also in a moral sense, as the piaggia is diserta in both a physical and a moral sense.

41. la ’mpresa = la impresa.

44. del magnanimo quell’ ombra: Virgil might be so named in any case, but magnanimo here, with viltade (vs. 45) applied to the wayfarer, suggests a struggle between magnanimity and pusillanimity. See Conv. IV, xxvi, 7, 9:

Questo sprone si chiama Fortezza, o vero Magnanimitate . . . . Quanto spronare fu quello, quando esso Enea sostenette solo con Sibilla a intrare ne lo Inferno a cercare de l’anima di suo padre Anchise, contra tanti pericoli.

This spur is called courage, or consciousness of greatness . . . . How great spurring was that when the same Aeneas hardened himself to enter alone with the Sibyl into hell and search for the soul of his father Anchises, in the face of so many perils.

Virgil’s exhortatio to Dante as they stand before the gate of Hell will be a direct reminiscence of this passage in the Aeneid. See Inf. III, 14–15 and the note.

46. fiate = volte, of frequent occurrence in Dante.

47. onrata = onorata.

48. quand’ ombra = quando s’adombra.

49. solve = solva, present subjunctive of solversi.

50. io ’ntesi = io intesi.

51. dolve = dolse, archaic past absolute of dolere in an impersonal construction, it grieved me for you.

52. sospesi: Literally, suspended. The meaning will become clear when the reader learns more (see Inf. IV, 28–42) about the condition of those in Limbo, of Virgil and the other virtuous pagans whose punishment it is to live in desire but without hope. The adjective sospesi (both here and again in Inf. IV, 45) indicates not only this spiritual condition, but also the actual physical position of Limbo; outside of Hell proper, it nevertheless is counted as the first circle.

55. Lucevan li occhi suoi più che la stella: See Vita nuova XXIII, 25 and Conv. III, ix, 11–12. la stella: Singular for the plural, as elsewhere in Dante.

56. a dir soave e piana: Both adjectives function here as adverbs modifying dir. See M. Barbi (1934b), p. 203.

57. in sua favella: In her speech or mode of speaking (as E. G. Parodi, 1957, p. 338, explains).

58–60. O anima . . . lontana: Beatrice’s words to Virgil have a rhetorical amplitude and formal development that follow recognized models, with an exordium in the manner of a captatio benevolentiae (gaining the good will [of another]). We may note here the first of the many appeals in the Inferno to enduring fame in the world of the living— a survival after death that is desired by many of the damned of Hell, as if it were their only immortality.

61. l’amico mio, e non de la ventura: Ventura is synonymous with Fortuna and, accordingly, bears in this context some suggestion of a personification, as if two ladies, Beatrice and Lady Fortune, were contending for this man’s affections. Behind the term amico, in this context, lies the current phrase nemica Fortuna as well as nemico della Fortuna. / See Boccaccio, Decam. III, 9 (vol. I, p. 254, 11. 17–18): Madonna, el mi pare che voi siate delle nemiche della fortuna come sono io (My lady, it appears to me that you are one of Fortune’s enemies, as I am); VIII, 7 (vol. II, p. 149, 1. 36): Ma anche questo l’aveva la sua nemica fortuna tolto (But this, too, her enemy Fortune had taken from her). See also X, 8 (vol. II, p. 285, 1. 11): amato dalla fortuna (beloved of Fortune). (See Plate 1.)

62. la diserta piaggia: The gran diserto and the loco selvaggio of Inf. I (vss. 64 and 93). See also la piaggia diserta, Inf. I, 29. In support of the meaning shore for piaggia here in Inf. II, 62, a metaphorical fiumana will appear in vs. 108.

63. vòlt’ è = è volto. paura: In fact, throughout the preceding account of this same scene, fear (see Inf. I, vss. 6, 15, 19, 44, 53, 90) was stressed as the chief obstacle to the ascent of the mountain. Now fear is explicitly said to be what caused the wayfarer finally to turn back. Virgil’s question to Beatrice (Inf. II, 82–84) continue to underline fear.

64. smarrito: The word echoes smarrita (Inf. I, 3) and suggests that the wayfarer may be in danger of again losing the diritta via, as indeed he is in his ruining down to the depth (Inf. I, 61).

68. mestieri = mestiere.

70. I’ son Beatrice: Virgil had referred to Beatrice in vss. 122–23 of the preceding canto as a soul worthier than he to take over as guide and lead the wayfarer to Paradise, but he did not explicitly name her. Now Virgil tells how she descended to Limbo and declared herself to him. But we may well wonder how Virgil, who died in 19 B.C., could be expected to recognize Beatrice, and his immediate recognition of her takes on a greater interest. See n. to vss. 76–78.

72. amor mi mosse: As is evident from Beatrice’s whole account of the prologue action in Heaven, the love she speaks of is a love de sursum descendens (descending from on high), the blessed Virgin Mary’s love and, in the

last analysis, God’s love. Beatrice in the Commedia is no Pre-Raphaelite Blessed Damozel.

76–78. O donna di virtù . . . li cerchi sui: These words of recognition to Beatrice are most important as a first focus on her allegorical meaning. See C. S. Singleton (1956). / Some editors place a comma after virtù; and since donna is the antecedent of cui, this seems preferable.

78. sui = suoi.

81. è uo’ = è uopo (cf. Latin opus est). For a justification of this reading see Petrocchi’s note.

82. la cagion che = la cagione per la quale.

83. in questo centro: In this context the phrase bears a strong pejorative connotation, which stems from the well-established view that the earth’s position at the center of the universe is the most ignoble—because it is farthest from God and His angels. The cavity of Hell is, of course, even farther from the ampio loco (vs. 84) of the Empyrean heaven. See Fra Giordano da Rivalto, Prediche VI (1739 edn., p. 22):

La terra . . . è il centro di questo mondo; imperocch’ella è nel mezzo di tutti i cieli, e di tutti gli elementi. Ma il diritto centro si è appunto quel miluogo della terra dentro, ch’è in mezzo della terra, come la granella è in mezzo del pome. Quello è il diritto centro, ove noi crediamo, che sia il ninferno.

The earth . . . is the center of this world, for it is in the midst of all the heavens and of all the elements. But the true center is precisely that point within the earth which is in its midst, as the core is in the midst of the apple. We believe that Hell is located there, at the true center.

84. l’ampio loco: The Empyrean heaven, the outermost sphere, which contains the whole universe. It is a spiritual heaven where the saints abide with God. ardi: Latent in the verb is the metaphor of fire or a flame which, in Dante’s physics as in Aristotle’s, seeks ever to rise to its proper place, i.e., the sphere of fire, the highest of the elemental spheres, as to its resting place. So Beatrice burns to return to her proper place. (See Figs. 1 and 2.)

85. saver = sapere.

86. dirotti = ti dirò.

88. dee = deve.

89. altrui:

Reviews for The Divine Comedy, I. Inferno, Vol. I. Part 2

[beauxarts79 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I am not prepared to debate the canonicity of this work, though my initial suspicion is that its political agenda is far too historically particular to render the kind of transcendent satisfaction I expect from a canonical work. That aside, I simply prefer realism, and the Inferno has the distinct flavor of a fever dream.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this once before (with a different translator) and it didn't have near the impact it did this time. I credit Dorothy L. Sayers for that. Her translation is lively, her interpretations and notes are helpful and inspiring. Possibly the fact that I have more knowledge of Greek myths and life in general than I did the first time is also helpful. I look forward to reading the rest of Dante's Comedy as translated by Sayers.

[charon07 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I never thought I'd say it, but I think I'd rather have read this for a literature class so as to get a better understanding of it. I felt as though I simply didn't have the context to appreciate it, and my world view is sufficiently remote from Dante's that I didn't have much personal insight. If fire, brimstone, and devils with pitchforks are your thing, you'll love this. Unfortunately, they're not mine.

I was pleased to have the extensive notes in this edition, however, and Pinsky's clean, modern translation was also greatly appreciated.

[comfypants · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A poet takes a tour of hell.2/4 (Indifferent).With most books that I read in high school, my experience reading them as an adult is vastly different. Not this one. It offers no depth, no subtlety, it just is what it is.

[064-699196 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Anthony Esolen's [relatively] new translation of Dante's Divine Comedy is my personal favorite for leisure reading. Here he captures the high drama, rage, fear, and pathos of Dante's poem better than any other translator I've read (and I've read many). I had already read Inferno umpteen times when I bought Esolen's translation, and it was like reading it for the first time again. I was almost brought to tears by Ugolino and his story, a story, like I said, that I had already read what seemed like a million times. A good translator makes the familiar seem new again, and Esolen's version of Dante accomplishes just that.One nice thing, poetically, about this translation is that Esolen avoids most of the flaws of other translations. His poetry is neither ridiculously ornate nor boringly literal, as many have the tendency to be. He walks the tightrope gracefully, sticking to an iambic pentameter line. He doesn't attempt to force rhyme on the translation (the fatal flaw of the otherwise excellent translation by Dorothy Sayers), but does use a rhyme when it presents itself naturally.This translation is highly recommended for anyone interested in The Divine Comedy. The notes section is scanty, especially compared to the Ciardi and Musa translations, but should be quite enough for even beginning readers.

[tungsten_peerts · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just a brief note about translations (is there any point in my 'reviewing' Dante? ;)): I first read the Laurence Binyon translation that used to be found in the "Portable Dante" -- this has since been replaced. I gave Allen Mandelbaum a shot and although I liked his version, Binyon's is the one I've stuck with, because it preserves the terza rima form and does so really well. I may give others a go eventually.

[rmagahiz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think it's good to read this every ten years or so, to marvel at Dante's inventiveness at the miseries these souls (heavily weighted toward those who were his contemporaries) have made for themselves, and how he makes himself so perfectly clueless about the very cosmology he devised. I paid particular attention to how as the author and his guide descend into Hell the sense of fantastic horror increases in a way that I don't think existed before. It felt like the aim was to burn out all vice in the Dante character so that he could re-emerge on the other side ready to take the path back toward heaven, maybe because of all the strife and tumult he'd experienced in his very political life up till then.
Reading the whole book in a month, about one canto a day, it just the right pace to allow one to study the endnotes. Most of the individual stories he crams in here I'd already forgotten from the previous times I've read the book. Of course many of these have now been adopted by other artists, but there are lots of others whom we know only through a couple of lines of verse seven centuries after they lived.
This is the second time I've read Pinsky's translation. I like it, but maybe not as much as John Ciardi's which seems more graceful, less brutal in places. The poem is a terrible beauty, studded with those amazing metaphors Dante was so fond of.

[drbrand-271246 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

And then, like one who unchooses his own choiceAnd thinking again undoes what he has started,So I became: a nullifying uneaseOvercame my soul on that dark slope and voidedThe undertaking I had so quickly embraced.Robert Pinsky's verse translation of Inferno is truly impressive. He keeps the terza rima without contorting the English syntax into incomprehensibility, mostly through utilizing consonant rhyming over more common vowel-based rhymes. In this way, he retains Dante's lexicon more than translators who would seek synonyms to force a rhyme. Outside of the translation, there is not much about Inferno that hasn't already been said. The notes were absolutely crucial in fully appreciating the breadth and depth of Dante's commentary of Italian society and medieval Christianity. But even if one skips the notes and glosses over the names of those populating hell, the imagery of souls torn open, monsters with uncountable appendages, and landscapes of fire and dust would stay with any reader. It truly is horrifying.

[scottjpearson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dante’s Divine Comedy is famously organized into three sections: hell (inferno), then purgatory, and finally paradise. The first section (hell) is generally considered the greatest of the three, and Robert Pinsky attempts to re-translate the verses in this edition. Dante intentionally wrote the Divine Comedy in the Italian of commoners (instead of the Latin of scholars) so that the masses could read it. Therefore, it is appropriate for Pinsky to translate the Inferno in a way that the average modern reader can understand. In my view, he is successful in this attempt.The pilgrim/narrator, who is an everyman living on earth, is guided into hell by Virgil, who is considered a great pagan living in the outer circles of hell. The Inferno represents a dystopia that only gets worse as one descends into the center. Its story of vices, not virtues, vividly portray the tragedy of the human condition, filled with thieves, betrayers, lusters, and hypocrites. One’s condition while alive on earth is only amplified in the afterlife. Although wedded to the Christian tradition, this version of hell is most representative of the ancient Romans and Greeks.Images like Brutus (who betrayed Julius Caesar) and Judas Iscariot (who betrayed Jesus Christ) sitting near the center of hell still fill the western psyche. Lucifer (Satan) sits at the center of hell, which lies at the center of earth. These images continue to fill popular culture and stem from Dante’s imagination more than Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The story of the Inferno is very dark and reminds the reader of darker parts of her/his own experiences on earth. Ironically, for Dante, hell is not a place of fire and brimstone but of self-absorption and never-ending sadness.Many in the modern world will reject Dante’s conception of the universe, which is based on medieval adaptations of Greco-Roman philosophy. We are much more scientific and not as otherworldly. Our concept of virtues and vices likewise correspond with our modern consciousness. Judas Iscariot and Brutus are not our archenemies as much as Hitler and Stalin. To the modern ear, Dante’s world seems utterly foreign. Nonetheless, Dante’s dark imagery (from the 1300s) will remind the reader of human nature today. Dante’s conception of the afterlife starts in the present-life.That’s why the modern reader should still attend to Dante, despite his medieval bearings. He understands human nature well. His poetic imagery is poignant and clairvoyant. He represents eras of human history that the literate public should not forget. Pinsky’s modern translation makes him once again accessible.

[depstein-512720 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

As much as I enjoyed reading about the tortures he designed for his Florentine political opponents, I spent entirely too much time reading about all these characters in the footnotes. He designed an interesting underworld that was essentially Christian but integrated diverse figures from the Bible, contemporary Italy, classical Greece and Rome, and Classical mythology.

[hillaryrose7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A handsome book, but a clunky and awkward translation.

[hopeevey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my first exposure to Dante's writing. I was looking for poetry by a different author when I came across this translation. When I saw the narrator, I decided it was time to read/hear some Dante :)

Dante sure thought a lot of himself! Good grief, even when he's singing the praises of some denizen of limbo, he's doing so in the context of being the vehicle of their remembrance among the living. You've probably heard the idiom, "damning with faint praise." Over and over, Dante praises himself with faint condemnation. No, Dante, it's not actually all that terrible that you trembled with fear while faced with the horrors of the pit.

I want to read an annotated translation of The Inferno. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he was mocking and calling out some of his contemporaries, as well as commenting on figures from the past.

Most of the work came from describing and talking to the denizens of the various neighborhood of perdition, but he didn't stint on describing the environs. He readily sketched the horrific backdrops to his interactions, giving just enough detail to be clear, but leaving space for the imagination to fill in the unmentioned horrors. This is not at all bedtime listening.

I seemed to sense some negative commentary on Church doctrine, but I'm not sure if that was in the text, or if that came from my 20th/21st century perspective. For instance, he lamented the number of people, even great and good people, condemned to Limbo simply because they lived before the establishment of Christianity. To my ear, that's a reason to question the church - but to Dante it may have been just another thing that was and didn't need to be questioned.

[antao-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What I love about Dante is how he doesn't invoke the Muses, unlike Homer, or Virgil, and that he goes straight to the heart of the matter, and straight in to the poem, i.e. "In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray, gone from the path direct". In the middle of his life Dante is lost in a dark wood, the man he most admires, a fellow poet, takes him by the hand and leads him through hell and purgatory, but when they reach the entry for Paradise, Virgil must give way to Beatrice, love is greater than wisdom, Dante's love for Beatrice, his desire for wisdom, what follows is exquisite poetry, and both Botticelli and Dali make an effort to capture the genius that resides there, as words, Virgil's trade, and Dante's, cede to inner knowing, as they ascend, then transcend, life, and reach beyond star and sun into the vast blue. TS Eliot wrote that Dante and Shakespeare "divide the world between them-there is no third." But is it exquisite poetry in English translation? I very much doubt it. The 1970s Penguin verse translation I read by Mark Susa was rubbish. Now I listened to an Audiobook with a translation by Robert Pinsky. Think I'll take T.S. Eliot's advice: use a prose translation if you must but learn Italian if you're serious about getting anything out of Dante's poetry (Portuguese and Italian both came from the same mold, Latin, but they're two very different languages).Dante is unafraid to sing the praises of the great Virgil "That well-spring from which such copious floods of eloquence have issued", nor the other greats of Latin verse, such as Ovid and Lucan. Likewise, Milton's description of "Death grinn'd horrible, a ghastly smile" in "Paradise Lost" is borrowed from Dante's description of Minos in Canto V of Inferno "There Minos stands, grinning with ghastly features". Virgil had been acceptable throughout the Middle Ages although his works were usually glossed with the alibi that they prefigured Christianity in variously dubious ways.....Virgil did write a Messianic Eclogue ("Now, a great new age is coming", etc.), but that could be about Augustus. It was hijacked by the Christians, but then, too, was something known as the Sortes Vergilianae, which was the deployment of Virgil in the same way as the Bible. The pagan bits were, however, glossed over, or excised.I have often wondered why the great writers such as Joyce, Beckett, Eliot, etc were so enthralled with Dante. I recall in "Damned to Fame" Beckett's biography the author James Knowlson mentioning Sam read "The Divine Comedy" in its original language and this volume was one of his most treasured possessions. I have read The Comedy many years ago (not really rolling in the aisles). Dante while including some Popes in the circles (but not all) must have been popular with some of the religious firebrands who feel his description (XI in particular) of the circles as "damned"...including those who were fraudsters, flatters, "...set their honest as pawn, ...such vile scum as these!" I recall thinking if these are all in Hell then Heaven must be a pretty sparsely populated spot! Is Dante's poetry that good to attract all the admiration... it certainly can't be the moral of his tale? But I guess the same could be said of some of Milton's works, another firebrand if one was to judge form his content.I'm not the most theologically accurate of persons. I'm still learning a lot from my Friend João Cláudio. As far as I'm aware, it is not the greatness of the act it is the attitude which one has towards it which matters. The most terrible of sins can be forgiven, through the merits of Jesus Christ, if repented. Heaven may have greater sinners in it than hell does but only hell has unrepentant sinners.Bottom-Line: Anyone who thinks that Dante didn't believe in forgiveness or grace hasn't understood the first thing about the Comedy, or about medieval catholic theology in general (I'm catholic; so I'm probably biased). The narrator's vision is the result of pure, undeserved grace, that brings him through hell and purgatory to the vision of God, causing him to be reconcilled to God - and to the memory of Beatrice. The point about the people in Hell is that they refused forgiveness and grace. Unlike later thinkers (such as Calvin) Dante held that God always responded to people who wanted forgiveness, and "Purgatory" and "Paradise" are full of people who did dreadful things, some of them only repenting at the moment of death. It's essentially a long narrative about love, not about torture and damnation.NB: Apparently, hell has three rooms: one is full of fire, the other full of ice and the other full of shit. Of course, most people choose the room of shit because you at least get to stand there with a warm cup of coffee under your nose. That is until coffee break is over and it is back on your heads.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this classic poem more than I expected. I may have lucked out with the translation, but I found the Inferno much easier to read than the excerpts I remember from my high school textbook. I also had the added context of having taken several classes on Florentine history in college, and I could spot a few of the cultural references Dante makes. Overall, this made for much richer reading than I expected and I'm tempted to picked up the next two books in the Divine Comedy.

[lilycowper-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I hate Shakespeare so I didn't think I'd like this, but I did. Really cool, every scene became real in my head, the black and white, cartoon version at least. The craziest part -- hell is real, to Dante and all the Catholics who read it when it was first published. How horrifying for them. Next time my grandmother wants me to go to mass with her, I'll go. He's a beautiful writer, and so modern but I don't know if thats just the English translation. Interesting perspectives on sin. It's like he knows to sin is a natural part of being human, which I keep forgetting. I hate to read those little summaries they give you because I want to read it the same way people have been for hundreds of years. He sort of invented hell, or he really saw it. The world was much more spiritual back then so to be honest I wouldn't rule it out. Maybe he saw all this in a dream. I don't know if I completely got this book but I'm just gonna keep reading it until I do. It's better if you don't read others' explanations of books like these, I think, because it is better to read it how people have always read it, and you can preserve your original reactions, based on your personal background in religion, nationality, language, faith, and sin. Maybe you think you belong in hell, maybe you think you belong in heaven, or maybe you don't believe in either or God or maybe you have your own definition of purgatory, and this will change the way we all feel about what Dante describes.

[theidlewoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The primary virtue of the Oxford / Sinclair edition is the parallel text, which means that you can both appreciate the beauty of Dante's original, and make sure that you miss none of the finer points by following the English translation. Each canto has its own introduction and endnotes, which means that important contextual information is always at hand. Inferno is for me by far the most engaging cantica, as Dante creates ever more imaginative tortures for the souls condemned to each circle of Hell. An absolute classic.

[northlaw · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have finally read the Inferno and if I am going to be honest, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Not being a student of Italian literature and having read Clive James' English translation there was probably a lot I was missing, in the original, but I found that it was really just a horror story with the added s pice of the author being able to denigrate persons he didn't like. All this would have been extremely entertaining at the time when the names were topical, but I do not understand why it is considered such a classic. It was just a litany of various types of physical torture with no overarching point that I could see, except to list all that horror.

[juva_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The narrator finds himself in the unlikely position of being on a guided tour through Hell lead by Virgil. You guys, it's pretty bad down there. Trenches full of shit, people buried in sand with their feet on fire, scabs being constantly scratched off. The author DOES NOT recommend this place - even to visit! It's hard to fully appreciate this book without taking a graduate course on it. I'm not a huge Italian history buff, so most of the people met in Hell are not names I'm familiar with. There are lots of famous mythological figures, but most are infamous "bad guys" of the time. Dark, grisly, and in that respect, pretty entertaining, this work had a lot to do with the modern imagination of Hell.

[dr_cicle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was kind of hard to understand but once I got it, it turned out to be super interesting.

[lissabeth21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Amazing and bizarre. To have lived in a time awhen the fires and ice of hell were as real as the sun rising each day. The horrors of The Inferno were certainly cautionary, but not exactly in keeping with what modernity would deem the correct weight of sins. On to Purgatorio.

[pomo58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Peter Thornton's verse translation of the first book of the Divine Commedy, The Inferno, is certainly readable. To the extent that that was an (the?) intention it succeeds. I think for a general reader who just wants to know why The Inferno has remained influential this will serve them well. There are plenty of contextualizing notes, a must for just about any translation, which will make understanding why certain people are where they are comprehensible to a contemporary reader.For study purposes I have my doubts but I have my own favorite translations so am doing more of a comparison than simply an isolated assessment. First, my preferred verse translation is still Ciardi's version (plus, if for study purposes, he translated all of the Comedy not just one book so you don't have to change translations when you leave the Inferno). Part of my favoritism here is likely because it was the third version I had read and the first with a professor who made it come alive for me, so I do want to acknowledge that. Part of it for me is how the translators try to solve the issue of form. Some compromise is necessary to make an English translation and I am not sure there is a right vs a wrong way, they will all fall well short of Dante in Italian. I just think that wrestling with a form closer to Dante's helps students to slow down and do a better close reading while making it too easy to read turns Dante's work into simply a story that can be read quickly and easily. Again, this is personal opinion and preference. The necessary notes will keep the work from being read like a contemporary novel and could, with the right effort from an instructor, keep the reading close. I just have a hard time imagining The Inferno as an easy read and hope not to see this type of translation of Purgatorio or Paradiso since those should be more difficult to grasp in keeping with Dante's apparent intentions.I would certainly recommend this to general readers who just want to read it and maybe for high school classes that want to get through it with just a few areas of closer reading. I would also recommend instructors look at it and decide if this translation would serve their purposes for what they hope to achieve in their courses. It is a good translation even though I would personally choose not to use it.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.

[librarylord99 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Stick with the original, this is "clever" yet not "readable."

[chwiggy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dieser Klassiker birgt so einige schöne, vielfältige und wundervolle Zitate, doch es ist kein einfaches Lesen. Oft fehlt dem modernen Leser das Wissen, um alle genannten Personen einordnen zu können. Dieser Mangel ist vermutlich dafür verantwortlich dafür, dass das Buch zwischen den Zitaten eher als Probe dient, wie gewillt man ist, sich durch seitenweise Verse durchzukämpfen. Leider geht darin die Schönheit und die Metaphorik des Textes für mich verloren. Vermutlich müsste man sich jeden Vers einzeln vornehmen, um das Werk wirklich zu verstehen.

[buffalopoet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Gets 5 star for the translation as much as the masterpiece itself - Pinsky really puts the fun back in the Inferno! ; )

[judithrs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

.The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: the Inferno. A verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum. 1982. I had big plans to spend the summer studying The Inferno. I didn’t and ended up skimming part of it to be ready for the book club. I will go back and read it more carefully and study the maps and the notes that are included as read Purgatorio before our next meeting. This masterpiece deserves much more than I have given it.

[mybucketlistofbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Works like this have always intimidated me. I think pretty linearly and will usually take what I read literally before thinking about it much, or having it explained to me. Also, I’m not a believer so it was guaranteed I would miss many of the allusions in this. However I am happy to say while I did not really catch on to all of it, I was able to grasp the meaning of most of it…and I have to say I kind of enjoyed it. It helped a lot having the translators summary and notes to guide me along. So while I am not going to become an avid reader of poetry for now at least, I am not quite as intimidated as I was!

[mlyons1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you haven't walked through Hell with Dante, I highly recommend you do so immediately. It's quite nice.

[audacity88_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mildly amusing, though this ostensibly pure Christian author clearly has a perverse streak running through him. (As does the Christian God, so not surprising.)

[thatotter-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read the Ciardi translation in college, and this had a similar feel. It read a little more like prose than poetry--it's unrhymed, though it still has a nice rhythm. Really drags when you get closer to the end, though.

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Almost totally pointless to read without an extensive grounding in 13th century Italian political history. I'm not surprised that Dante took the narrative of exploring hell as an opportunity to portray the supposedly deserved suffering of various recent historical figures he hated but I was not prepared for the extent to which he single-mindedly devoted the Inferno to this purpose and nothing else, just one long catalog of medieval Italians I'd never heard of and what a just God would posthumously wreak on them. Also Simon told me there's a cute fan-fictioney current to the relationship with Virgil, and I thought he was exaggerating but no, it's definitely there - there's one point where Dante talks about how one of his slams on these dead Italian assholes was so on target that Virgil decided to show how happy he was with it by carrying Dante around in his big strong poet arms for a while. Anyway this is cute and gay but it's not enough to carry my interest through the book.